


Ultimatum

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-05
Updated: 2006-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows where he stands with her, even if they never speak of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ultimatum

**Author's Note:**

> I believe this was in response to a challenge. The prompt was "I'll stay, but only if you say the words." And this was the result. Frankly, I rather loathe "I love you" stories. There are so many other ways to say that which don't require actually saying the words - and for some characters, declarations of love are just wrong.

“I’ll stay, but only if you say the words.”

It wasn’t an ultimatum he’d intended to make. It wasn’t an ultimatum she wanted to hear.

John made it anyway.

Teyla was used to living on the edge, used to taking one day at a time. John could only see the endless years stretching beyond this thing they had agreed would be quiet and below radar. She made no promises, unwilling to commit to anything beyond her people and the destruction of the Wraith.

He wanted more.

He found it ironic that a flyboy pilot turned expedition military leader should be the one demanding a promise. Weren’t men supposed to be the commitment-shy ones? Shouldn’t she be the one asking him for the words?

She hesitated, glancing out the window at the sea beyond the city. “John, it is not that easy.”

“They’re just words, Teyla,” he snapped, angry at her continued attempts to evade having to answer. He knew this was more than just something to pass time for her. They were friends, had been team-mates, trusted each other - something in him _knew_ she loved him. They wouldn’t have been lovers this long if she didn’t.

Her hands clenched around the sticks but her lips never moved.

John turned away, shoving his sticks into his duffle. The recall to Earth was not entirely unexpected given the change of administration, but he’d been willing to challenge it to stay here. Others were going to challenge it and with his support - and that of Generals O’Neill, Hammond, and Landry, they might even succeed in keeping the Atlantis expedition open.

He’d intended to return to Pegasus. Now, he wasn’t so sure. And he’d pushed things too far, asking her for a promise - a commitment she wasn’t ready to give.

Maybe it would be best if he went back to Earth - no longer ‘home’ - and do whatever job the Air Force had for a pilot-turned-expedition leader. The people who lived in the Pegasus galaxy would stay in the Pegasus galaxy, and these four years of his life would be hazy with the veil of something not-quite-a-dream, but never a reality.

And John Sheppard would try to forget that he’d cared about Teyla Emmagen when she couldn’t quite love him back.

This morning, things had been simple. Now...

He was at the door before she spoke in a slow, halting voice that dragged its feet through the dust of conversation. “Everyone I have loved has died, John,” she said. “I do not want...”

John turned on his heel. _Everyone I have loved..._ “I’m still alive.”

Her gaze was steady. “And that is why I want you to go back to Earth.”

He couldn’t quite believe-- “You’d send me back to Earth because-- Teyla, I’ve been here four years.”

“This is not your fight.”

“Like hell it isn’t!” Not when he’d been the one to wake the Wraith, not when he and the expedition had been in the thick of things since day one of their arrival here. “You were willing enough to take our help all this time!”

“When there was hope that the Wraith might be defeated - but now--”

“Now there’s all the more reason to fight,” John said. “Teyla, the new President is trying to recall us...that doesn’t mean we have to go.”

“You could have a life on Earth--”

“I have a life here!” John faced her, wondering why she didn’t get it. “Teyla, everything I have - everyone I care about - is on this expedition. This _is_ my life!”

“Then does it matter if I say anything or not?” Teyla asked. “If you will stay, then why does it need my answer?”

The question hovered between them, like a veil between them, covering understanding. “Because I want to hear it,” he said, tearing the veil away. “You’ve never _said_\--”

“I have stayed,” she replied, steadily. “Is that not enough?”

Teyla had stayed with the expedition - and with John - in the face of her people’s disapproval, in the face of the distance that grew each year between her and the people she had been born to lead. Oh, some still trusted her, but she was regarded as a stranger by her own people - caught between two worlds and belonging to neither.

“Yes.” John took a deep breath and tossed back his hair from his eyes to look her in the face. “But the words would be nice once in a while.”

Silence grew between them as she searched his face for something. John didn’t know if she found it or not, but something eased back in her.

Teyla tossed her sticks to the side, and approached him slowly. His duffle was slipped off his shoulder and went the way of her sticks.

There was a slow peace about her, a strength that attracted him from the first day they met. And if he was always the one to move them through the stages of their relationship, then she was always the one to anchor them in the now. John buried his nose in her hair and wrapped his arms around her. She frightened him - they all did, but Teyla most of all - because life in Pegasus was so fragile and she wasn’t content to sit in Atlantis and stay safe, and John couldn’t always protect her.

“I would have you stay,” she said at last, very quietly into his shoulder. “I would have you safe, and I would have you live, but most of all, I would have you stay here.”

Less than he wanted, more than he would otherwise get. John stroked the bare skin at the base of her spine and felt her shift against him in ways that were exquisitely familiar. He bent his head to kiss her, and felt the eagerness of her response deep in his belly.

Now wasn’t the time for this, but Teyla wasn’t one for affectionate gestures out of bed. And John wanted more of her - as much as she would let him take.

When he finally persuaded himself to break the kiss, they were both breathing a little deeper than before, and her skin was flushed with dusky undertones.

“Later,” he promised her.

She smiled at him, a teasing curve of her lips. “Yes.”

They left the gym with her hand in his, although Teyla pulled back on him when they were out in the corridor. “John?” He turned and met her steady, slightly anxious gaze. “Is it enough?”

She still hadn’t said the words. Maybe she never would. John would just have to live with it. And, in the end, he knew where he stood with her, even if she never spoke of it.

“Yeah,” he said as he led her back to the city. “It’s enough.”


End file.
